'Callous, cruel and ultimately fatal' Man jailed for murder of two-year-old

It is thought that two-year-old Isabella Jonas-Wheildon had been dead for about three days when the girl's mother, Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell, and her partner, Scott Jeff, were captured on CCTV wheeling the toddler's body around Ipswich in a pushchair.

- Guardian staff

Footage shows the pair pushing the child's body to a service station, a pub and to shops to buy video game equipment in the days after her death.

Police believe that the child, described as "perfect in every way" by her family, died on the evening of 26 June 2023 after a campaign of abuse by Jeff, 24, who had only been in her life for 36 days. Yesterday Jeff was sentenced to 26 years in prison for Isabella's murder. Her mother received a sentence of 10 years for allowing her daughter's death.

Mr Justice Garnham said that Jeff carried out a cruel campaign of violence and abuse which ended with the toddler's death.

Garnham said Gleason-Mitchell, 24, had been so concerned at saving her relationship with Jeff that she had let him abuse her daughter.

"You stood by and let that violence and abuse happen to your little girl," he said. "You are an inarticulate, immature and frankly very weak individual and in Scott Jeff's company you were easily bullied and manipulated. You were so pathetically desperate to be with Scott Jeff that you allowed every maternal instinct to be subverted by Scott Jeff."

Garnham added: "Isabella's killing has had a devastating effect on her family. Their lives will be permanently disfigured."

On the morning of 30 June, Gleason-Mitchell, a former nursery worker, sent her friend Joanne Gardner a Facebook message, saying Isabella had died in her sleep three days before and was in her pushchair in the bathroom.

"We can't call police as she developed bruises and we will get done for it," a message read. In a subsequent voice message, which Gleason-Mitchell asked Gardner to delete, she said: "I feel like we're just going to bury her and hope for the best."